Nüwa Mends the Heavens

Su Jin stayed in the Cheng Family's kiln house for three days and three nights.

On the first day, she kneaded clay. On the second, she trimmed greenware. On the third, she stood before the kiln opening, holding a brush washer that had yet to be glazed. Its body was grayish white and thin enough to let light through. With her fingers pinching its rim, she could see the shadows of bamboo cast on the paper window opposite.

The old man had been standing behind her the whole time.

"You learn quickly."

Su Jin didn't turn around. She looked at the kiln opening. It was arched, its bricks dark gray, with black kiln sweat filling the joints. The heat of centuries of fire was sealed inside, never dispersing.

"Not quickly enough."

"I'm afraid it can't wait."

She looked down at the piece in her hands. The brush washer's walls were so thin that a heavier breath would make them tremble. She placed it in a sagger and put the lid on. She didn't glaze it or fire it; she simply left it there.

She turned around and looked at the old man.

"I need people. Not just me, but a whole group. People to knead clay, trim greenware, mix glazes and fire the kiln."

Elder Cheng looked at her without speaking.

Su Jin didn't stop. "I know the Cheng Family has skills passed down for six hundred years, never taught outside the family. I don't want your skills. I want your eyes. One look at a glaze, and you know what's wrong with it. One look at a fire, and you know how much longer it needs to burn. One look at a piece, and you know whether it will turn out. Those things, I can't learn. I can't wait."

Elder Cheng stood by the window. Outside, bamboo shadows swayed across his face, back and forth, again and again.

"In six hundred years, the Cheng Family has never left this mountain. Our craft doesn't go out, and neither do our people."

Su Jin waved a hand and took another step forward.

"I don't want you to go out. I'll come in. You light the kiln fires, and I'll bring the people in. You fire your wares, and I'll sell mine."

Elder Cheng looked at her for a long time, so long that the bamboo shadows outside the window moved from left to right.

Su Jin stood before him, feet together, back straight, hands at her sides. Her dark green qipao was almost black in the dim kiln house. Only the dark blue piping at its collar flashed in the light filtering through the window paper.

She spoke word by word.

"I'll light the kiln fires."

That night, Su Jin opened the System Store in the guest room.

She sat cross-legged on the bed in a white cotton nightgown, her hair loose. She had just bathed, and the hot water had steamed her skin faintly red, leaving a pale pink glow on her cheekbones.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the screen and hovered above the quilt. She fluttered her wings twice but said nothing, just watched her.

"I want to buy people. One each to knead clay, trim greenware, mix glazes and fire the kiln. All top-tier."

Little Golden Egg spun once in the air.

"Host, do you know how much top-tier porcelain artisans cost in the System Store?"

Little Golden Egg named a figure. After hearing it, Su Jin simply flipped her phone over, glanced at her account balance, and flipped it back.

"Enough."

Little Golden Egg muttered,

"Buy these four people, and your points will drop to zero. Are you sure?"

Without hesitation, Su Jin said she was sure.

Little Golden Egg hovered before her, her golden glow as bright as a lamp that would never go out in the darkness of the guest room.

"Four people have been added to the recruitment list. The system will automatically match, screen and contact them. They're expected to start within two weeks.

"The clay kneader comes from Arita Town, Saga Prefecture, Japan. His family has kneaded clay for three hundred years. The clay for the emperor's tableware was kneaded by his family.

"The greenware trimmer comes from Saint John in the United Kingdom. He trimmed greenware at the Royal Porcelain Factory for forty years. He trimmed that Ming Yongle blue-and-white flattened flask in the British Museum.

"The glaze mixer comes from Jingdezhen, but he isn't from the Cheng Family. He has a different surname. His family has mixed glazes for five hundred years. The Imperial Kiln Factory's formulas are all in their heads, not written down on paper.

"The kiln firer is a woman from Gwangju, South Korea. Her family has fired kilns for four hundred years, wood-fired kilns. She doesn't use pyrometric cones or thermocouples; she watches the fire with her eyes. One look at the color of the flames, and she knows the temperature inside the kiln."

Su Jin listened with satisfaction and placed her phone facedown on the bedside table.

The corners of her mouth lifted. "When they arrive, have them come straight to Jingdezhen."

She lay down, pulled the quilt up to her chin and closed her eyes.

Little Golden Egg hovered beside the pillow, her voice soft. "The way you spend money is different now. Before, you bought things. Now you buy people. People cost more than things, but they're worth more."

Su Jin didn't answer. Her breathing grew long and even. She had fallen asleep.

The next morning, Su Jin called Zhao Mingyuan.

"I want to open a new unit in the contemporary porcelain section at Poly Auction. No antiques, just new porcelain. Peachbloom fired in the Cheng Family's kiln by my people, sold at Poly.

"One sale a year, twelve pieces per sale. No firing or selling more than that."

Zhao Mingyuan was silent on the other end of the line for so long that Su Jin thought he had hung up.

He said slowly, "President Su, there has never been a dedicated contemporary porcelain sale in the auction market. Collectors buy antiques as an investment, but they buy new porcelain for consumption. Investment and consumption don't follow the same logic."

Su Jin said peachbloom wasn't for consumption.

Peachbloom was for collecting.

Something that had been lost for ninety years had now been revived. The first kiln firing, the first batch, the first piece-if that wasn't an investment, what was?

Zhao Mingyuan fell silent again, this time for even longer.

After a long while, he finally spoke.

"All right. I'll arrange it. Poly's contemporary porcelain unit will be called 'Rekindling.' Rekindling, as in bringing the fire back to life."

Su Jin gave a murmur of assent and hung up. She stood at the guest-room window, looking at the mountains outside.

The mountains were deep blue in the morning mist, darker nearby and lighter in the distance. At their farthest reaches, they blended into the sky, making it impossible to tell where the mountains ended and the clouds began.

She stood there a long time, until the mist dispersed, until the sun came out, until the sunlight turned the bamboo grove outside the window into a golden, motionless sea.

The costume fitting for the Nüwa film was in Beijing.

Su Jin flew back to Beijing from Jingdezhen and went straight to the studio after getting off the plane.

The studio was outside the Fifth Ring Road. It was enormous, the kind built specifically for shooting movie posters. Its ceiling was more than ten meters high, and lighting rigs rose from the floor all the way to it, like an inverted metal forest.

When Su Jin arrived, more than twenty people were already in the studio: stylists, makeup artists, photographers, a Disney producer and the director.

She got out of the car and walked into the studio. Everyone fell silent at once.

The stylist led her into the dressing room. Three outfits hung on the wall, each in a translucent dust bag. The bags were custom-made, with the two characters for "Nüwa" printed on them in tiny gold lettering that flashed under the lights.

The first outfit was battle armor.

Silvery-white metal plates overlapped one another, like a snake's scales or a dragon's armor. Every plate was different: large ones at the shoulders, small ones at the waist, and the smallest at the wrists, as delicate as a bracelet woven from silver thread.

Exceedingly fine cloud patterns were engraved along the edges of the plates. The patterns were gold, not bright but a muted gold, like gold that had been through fire. A thin black layer of oxidation covered the surface, but the light beneath remained.

Under the armor was a long white silk dress, its hem trailing on the floor. The dress was made of plain silk gauze, exceptionally thin and light. Worn, it was like a layer of mist, with skin beneath. The skin was white, and the gauze was white too, white layered over white, making it impossible to tell where the clothing ended and the body began.

The hem was raw and unfinished, loose threads spilling out like clouds scattered by the wind.

The second outfit was everyday wear.

It was a moon-white silk robe, wide, with no fitted waist or sash. Once worn, it wrapped the whole person inside, like an unfinished white stone statue.

The robe was made of plain satin, thick and draping. When the light fell on it, it reflected nothing, only absorbed it, like a layer of motionless moonlight congealed on the surface of the body.

It had a crossed collar, with the left side overlapping the right, exactly like the collars on the clothes of pottery figurines from the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

The sleeves were so wide that when they hung down, they could cover the entire hand, leaving only the fingertips exposed. The fingertips were white, the nails pink, with no color applied.

The third outfit was ceremonial dress.

It was black from head to toe. The fabric was dark silk, not pure black but a black with red showing through, like the night sky, like an abyss, like a kiln that had burned for three days and three nights, its temperature at its peak, its flames no longer red but transformed into an almost black, invisible light.

Its high collar stood against the jaw. An exceedingly fine red border edged the collar, not true red but cinnabar red, the red vein in the five-colored stone Nüwa used for Mending Heaven.

The skirt fell straight from the waist, with no folds or slits, like a flag that would never flutter.

A wide sash was tied around the waist, the same cinnabar red as the collar's border. The sun, moon and stars were embroidered on it-no, woven into it, gold and silver threads interlacing in warp and weft. The sun was in the center, the moon on the left, and stars were scattered densely around them, like diamond chips that would never go dark, casually strewn across black cloth.

Su Jin stood before the three outfits, studying each one carefully.

She pointed at the black ceremonial dress and said, "I'll try this one."

The stylist helped her put it on.

The black robe fell from her shoulders, following her body without clinging or constricting, like a layer of black water frozen by time. The red border of the collar rested against her jaw, like a fine streak of blood that would never dry.

When the sash was fastened, the sun, moon and stars rested against her waist. The sun was gold, the moon silver, the stars diamond chips, all glittering under the lights.

She stood before the mirror, looking at the person in it.

Black dark silk, a cinnabar-red collar, a sun woven in gold thread, a moon woven in silver thread, stars scattered in diamond chips.

Her face, framed by the black collar, was as white as an unglazed porcelain body fresh from the kiln.

Her eyes were amber, with an exceedingly fine golden ring around each pupil. Under the lights, they looked like two pieces of sliced-open agate, still flowing.

The stylist stood behind her, looked at her reflection and exclaimed, "That's her."

The director stood in the doorway of the dressing room then, a script in his hand, and said,

"President Su, here's the story."

Su Jin raised an eyebrow, turned around and looked at him.

The director came in and opened the script.

"Nüwa didn't mend the heavens. The heavens didn't fall. They cracked. They didn't fall; a fissure opened in them. It wasn't big, and it couldn't be seen, but things leaked out through it.

"Good things leaked out, and bad things leaked out too.

"People's souls leaked away, their spirits leaked away, their lives leaked away.

"Nüwa stood on the earth and looked at the sky. The sky was blue, the clouds were white, birds were flying, and people were walking.

"She saw a fissure. No one else could see it. She stood on the earth and watched for a long time. Then she began refining stones.

"She wasn't mending the heavens; she was plugging the fissure. She refined five-colored stones: red, yellow, blue, white and black. She ground them into powder, mixed them into a slurry, kneaded it into clay, shaped it into pieces, dried them, trimmed them, glazed them and fired them. They fired for thirty-six shichen. The kiln fire was red, the sky was black, and she stood there.

"Day broke, and the kiln was opened. Inside was a brick. A five-colored brick: red, yellow, blue, white and black. She took the brick and flew up into the heavens.

"She scattered the broken pieces of the brick across the sky. They became stars: red, yellow, blue, white and black. She stood among the stars, looking down at the earth. The land was green, the water was blue, and the people were tiny. She stood there and did not come down.

"People later said that Nüwa had mended the heavens. That wasn't so. She didn't mend them. She made the heavens into stars, so people could see them when they looked up.

"When the people on earth looked up, they saw the brightest star of all. That was her."

The director finished reading, closed the script and let out a long breath, watching the woman before him nervously.

A single word from her could decide whether the script lived or died.

Su Jin returned to the mirror, wearing the black ceremonial dress, its red collar edging against her jaw, the sun, moon and stars at her waist shining with the light of gold, silver and diamond chips under the lamps.

She touched the dress and said, "For the part where she fires the brick, I'll do it. Not pretend to fire a brick. I'll really fire one."

The director froze for a moment.

"You want to actually fire a kiln?"

Su Jin smiled. "I studied for three days."

"I can knead clay, trim greenware, mix glaze and watch the fire. If the firing succeeds, the brick will be real. If it doesn't, the scene will be real." The director looked at her without speaking.

The director looked at her, stunned for a long time, doing nothing but nodding over and over.

The corners of Su Jin's mouth curved. She wanted to create a real, stunning and grand Chinese mythology film.